The Value of a Life
by PrincessOfGotham
Summary: Detective Mark Hoffman, Susan's loving, handsome husband, is not who he seems... UPDATE: This story is now COMPLETED!
1. Chapter 1

Susan walked up the hall to her husband's home office. She knocked at the door and waited patiently for his call of 'come in' before actually going in. She had been married to Detective Mark Hoffman for nearly ten years and she had learned in those ten years that coming into his office without permission was sometimes not a good idea. He was a cop, a forensic detective to be exact, and his work was never glamorous, hardly ever bearable for her.

"Come on in," he called. She had heard him moving around some papers before calling her in. When she opened the door, he was closing his brief case and laying it to rest for the night.

"It's late, are you coming to bed soon?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be right in," he said with a tired smile. She smiled back, then turned and left the room.

Mark watched his wife go, his adrenaline easing back down. It always frightened him how close of quarters she lived in to his secret. He loved her, and therefore, she could never know about what he and John really did. She thought they were solving the case, when really, they were forwarding it.

When he met John Kramer three years ago, it had been by chance. Sure, he had opened the window and caused the meeting, but had he not stepped into that exact elevator at that exact time, he would have missed him. Not that John wouldn't have found him later through other means. And he was looking for him for a specific reason anyway. Because his last murder at the time had not been the work of Jigsaw, though it had looked much like it. It had been committed by Mark himself.

A year before that, right before he had been put on the Jigsaw case, he and Susan had lost their little girl to a pedophiliac murderer who had raped their daughter, then cut her up into little pieces. What the killer hadn't known was how long it had take he and Susan to finally conceive and carry the child to term, how many times he and his wife had held little Isabella and thanked God for finally giving them their child. To have her ripped so readily from their hands and her life so gruesomely ended, sickened Mark and depressed Susan to a place he had never seen her fall into.

She laid in bed, lethargic and seemingly life-less inside. He was hurting in a more "walking pneumonia" way, carrying through his life, all the while knowing things weren't okay. Susan barely spoke to him at all for almost six months. For them, it was not normal. He and Susan had met in college and had become best friends and passionate lovers very quickly. And even with marriage, their love and passion for each other never faltered. He thought for a while that this was going to split them apart. Upon the realization, he became very desperate.

The cops caught the perpetrator a few months after Isabella went missing. But through a crafty defense attorney and a supposed addiction to pornography, along with a childhood of abuse and neglect, he was let go with strict probation and rehabilitation. It stunned Susan, plunging her even deeper into her depression, and sickened Mark, more than he was willing to deal with. He began following the guy for a while, seeing how many people might actually miss him, how faithful he was being to the ruling of the court. But the more he followed, the more he watched his wife dying on the inside, the more his rage churned and boiled until one night, he set up the lethal trap and sealed the fate of the man who killed his daughter. Little did he know he was sealing his own fate in the process.

Having been on the Jigsaw cases for sometime now, he saw the answer to his dilemma. He had been studying the murder traps set up by the infamous Jigsaw killer, and began imagining how he would set it up, how he would want the man to suffer. He kept coming home to Susan in bed, asleep, barely moving. She had lost nearly 25 lbs. from inactivity and lack of any regular eating pattern. It was frightening him. One night, he came home to find her half awake.

"Susan? Are you awake?" he asked, sitting on the bed next to her, touching her side. He could feel her ribs, the lack of muscle and fat. She had never been a heavy woman, by any means, but she had been healthy, slim, but soft and muscled. She groaned. "Sweetheart, I think maybe you should try to eat something," he said.

"'M not hungry," she groaned.

"Please, Susan, please, you're scaring me," he pleaded. She didn't say another word. Instead, she fell back asleep. Tears welled in his eyes, and he frowned and scraped them away with the back of his fists. He wasn't the type of man who didn't care, who thought she should just get over it, nor was he the type to go looking for someone else while she wasted away. It was then that he decided it was time to change things, take them into his own hands.

It took about two weeks to set up the trap. Capturing the man had been easy, and watching him die had enticed a rush, and sense of accomplishment. When the swinging, axe-style pendulum slashed into his flesh, again and again, his screams provided Mark with the satisfaction of knowing that the man who had so willingly taken his daughters life, and indirectly was in the process of taking his wife's, was dying, and that his blood was on his hands. The papers, as well as the cops and the Bureau, believed undeniably that it had been the work of Jigsaw and Mark had walked away without so much as a single suspicion directed at him.

He had come home to find his wife, freshly showered, sitting at the kitchen table. He looked around and saw that the kitchen was spotless, as was most of the house.

"Susan?" he called, laying his coat on the back of the chair. He came in and saw that she was reading the newspaper.

"Did you know about this?" she asked, pointing to the headline. It read 'Jigsaw Strikes Again, Punishes a Local Sex Offender'. His blood ran cold with adrenaline.

"Yes-"

"How could you not tell me?!" she said.

"I-I didn't want to upset you, I thought it would just-"

"Upset me? Mark, I, I'm relieved," she said, barely above a whisper. She bit her lip, not lifting her eyes from the paper in front of her. When she finally did look at him again, tears were rimming her brown eyes. "Is that bad?" she whispered. And for the first time in nearly seven months, he saw his wife, the woman with whom he fell in love. He knelt down in front of her and grabbed her hands.

"No," he said, looking up at her, on the verge of tears himself. "No, Susan, it's not bad." Her face wrinkled and she sobbed. He wrapped his arms around her tight. She felt fragile in his arms, so thin and yet, the reverberating sobs shook her, and he felt her finally breaking free of her internal coma. She was waking up, he was certain of that. It made him feel even better about having done the deed himself, though he knew she could never know that. She believed in the hero he was, the cop, the good guy.

"Oh Mark, Mark, I'm sorry," she sobbed.

"Shhh," he cooed, taking her face between his hands and holding it there. "I love you, Susan," he said. She smiled through her tears and he thought he would cry out for joy at the sight.

"I love you too," she said. He swept her up and carried her upstairs.

That night, for the first time since the death of their daughter, they made love.


	2. Chapter 2

Now, over a year later, they were back to as near normal as anyone could get after what they had been through. The loss of their daughter and the fact that they had finally been able to overcome it only made their marriage seem stronger.

Mark locked his briefcase and then his office before retiring for the night. He came down the hall to their bedroom, and when he entered, he saw that his wife was already in bed, watching the late evening news on the television. He shed his clothes and shut off the light, sliding into bed with her.

Susan watched her husband take his clothes off and was reminded of one of the reasons they had been together for seven years now; he was a very handsome, virile man who made her happy in nearly every way a man could please his wife. He first removed his shoes and socks, then loosening his tie until it came completely undone from its immaculate knot. He unbuttoned his shirt, and she bit her lip, watching him shed his shirt, then pants, then everything else. She felt a stir within her core that made her want him like nothing else.

She watched the room go dark after he was naked, and he slid into bed with her. The coolness of the sheets provided a sweet, relieving effect on his ever-tense body that made him sigh gratefully. He slid up behind Susan and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her against his naked body. She could feel his building erection already pressing against her bottom through her long nightshirt. He squeezed her, feeling the healthy weight she had put back on since coming out of her depression, and it made him happy deep inside; he was glad to have his strong, beautiful, loving wife back. He kissed the side of her neck, moving gently over the soft flesh, the warmth of his breath caressing her, eliciting a response from her body that was entirely sexual.

"Mark," she moaned breathily, wriggling the curve of her ass back into the cradle of his hips, purposely impassioning the beast that he had become of late. He let out a low, throaty groan; the same groan that she had grown accustomed to for the past seven years and yet, it never ceased to turn her on.

His hands pushed up the nightshirt, finding her naked underneath, and slid them up over her breasts, first stroking them, then squeezing and fondling them. He rubbed his thumbs in slow, heated circles around her nipples, then flicked them. She wrenched the pillow beside her with her hands, groaning his name again and again. He then firmly bit the flesh on the side of her neck, applying just enough pressure to shock her, without hurting her. He held for a moment, then released her and ran his tongue soothingly over the bite. She shivered, enjoying this side of him. He continued to nip and kiss and suckle her neck, even as he took one hand from her breasts and trailed it down her slim, soft stomach, down until he slipped it between her legs. He parted her and began stroking her clit and tender opening, encouraging her body to prepare for sex. He felt her juices begin to come and he spread them eagerly over her labia, pushing his fingers inside. She gasped, unable to help herself. She squeezed her legs together and rocked her hips forward, persuading him to continue.

Subtle as it was, Susan had noticed a definite change in her husband. Though he was never violent, he was increasingly more aggressive. Their sex life had probably taken on the most change. After not so much as kissing for six months, she had dismissed it at first as he was just eager to get back to being regular lovers. But even as they got back to normal, it didn't stop. Though there had been passion before, it was nothing like now. Now, he could decide on a whim to come home on his lunch break, taking her away from dishes or laundry or whatever she happened to be doing and he would ravage her on the kitchen table for an hour before going back to the office. Not even when they were dating was he so passionate. Mark took control more eagerly, with more aggression. And she liked it. She thought of it was a sign that their marriage had healed and was now better than it had been before. Losing Isabella had nearly broken them, both individually and as a couple. Finding out that the man who killed her had been quite literally sliced to pieces himself, had allowed for her to break through the emotional prison she had put herself in. Even though she knew it was wrong, she was glad. The court had let him walk. This way, at least she knew their daughter had gotten justice. She joked internally to herself that when and if the Jigsaw killer was ever caught, she wanted to thank him.

Mark continued to wreak havoc on her. He grabbed her, sitting up, and put her on her back, propped up against the pillows. She took off the nightshirt and tossed it aside, wanting to be naked and splayed before him. In this new, insatiable Mark, she found that she rather liked teasing him, doing things she knew would result in rough, passionate sex. She leaned back before him on the pillows, watching his gaze drift over her body. She looked him over as well, noting how aroused he was and how good it made her feel. She let her legs fall open, and his gaze dropped between them. Even in the dim light, she saw his face flush red in the hollows of his cheeks, making her very aware of how hot and aroused he was. He reached down and parted her again. He then leaned down and pressed his hot mouth directly against the vulnerable lips of her sex. She moaned, arching her hips. She felt his tongue move up the very center of her, licking and prodding, making her writhe and plead.

"Ohhh, my, god, Mark," she moaned. He licked her in uneven strokes, some soft and slow, others rapid and fleeting then grazed her sensitive folds with his teeth as well, making her body shiver and quake with the intensity of her desire. He took one of her legs and propped it up over his shoulder, opening her even more. He continued devouring her for several minutes, nearing making her come more than a few times. When he finally pulled away, she groaned in frustration. He looked down at her lovingly, but still looking fiercely aroused. He sat up, adjusting her position so he could enter her. He then reached down and guided himself to the opening of her cunt and shoved the full length of his erection into her in one swift stroke. She very nearly screamed at the suddenness of it.

"Is that what you want? Hmm?" he asked, pulling back a bit, then shoving forward into her again. He leaned down to take one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking it, then applying pressure to it between his teeth. She cried out.

"Yes!" she cried, and he began fucking her with an intense, quick rhythm that she had come to enjoy. He released her nipple and brought his face back level with hers. She reached for him, her hands coming to his shoulders, holding there for balance. He fucked her hard and rough, and all she could think was how much she loved it. She wanted him like this as much as she could get. He kissed her once, his breath hot and panting.

"Tell me something, Susan, what do you enjoy the most? My hand, my mouth, or my cock?" he panted. She bit her lip, embarrassed at his question.

"I don't know," she said, amazed that he was still so concentrated on fucking her and was able to ask her a question like that.

"Tell me, I want to know," he demanded.

"Oh god, all of them, all," she moaned. He laughed, then grabbed one of her legs and brought it up over his shoulder, making her opening more constricted and tight, making their love-making more intense. "Mark, dear god," she couldn't help herself. He was more than her husband, he was her soul mate, she knew it. No one could have this kind of chemistry with someone and not be. He was meant to be hers, as was she to him.

"Say my name," he growled, bucking his hips even harder, making rhythmic slapping noises as his hips slammed into her again and again. She could barely process what he had said before he reached down between them and found her clit, pinching it between his thumb and index finger. "Now!" he demanded, all the while still fucking her in perfect rhythm.

"Mark!" she cried, the sensations so overwhelming that she wasn't sure she would remain conscious. It happened sometimes now. At first, it had frightened her, but now she didn't mind. She would wake up cradled in his arms a few moments later, satisfied and exhausted.

He pounded into her, again and again, still fingering her clit, when finally, she came. She managed to stay in this world through it, raking her fingernails across her husband's shoulders, feeling him plunge his cock into her the last few times before he joined her. Mark orgasmed powerfully, then collapsed, managing to keep his weight upon his elbows and forearms, so he didn't smother her. She wrapped her arms around him tight, one of her legs still balanced on his shoulder, the other one still wrapped around behind his buttocks, keeping him anchored to her. A few moments later, as he quit panting, he went to pull away.

"No, please," she pleaded softly. He brought his eyes level with hers, questioningly. "Not just yet, I-I liked the way you feel, you know," she felt embarrassed for admitting such a thing. But he didn't laugh, didn't even smile. He just nodded and kissed her, then returned his head to her chest.

"I love you Susan," he said.

"I love you Mark," she answered, cradling his head against her breasts.


	3. Chapter 3

Even Susan knew something was different. It didn't seem to be a bad thing, but it certainly made her wonder. She knew his promotion to Detective Lieutenant was something he took pride in, but only when no one was looking. He seemed to take the Jigsaw case very seriously, and she half-wondered if maybe that was what was affecting him. She wished he would talk to her, but the few times she had brought it up, he had dismissed it immediately, citing it as confidential and too gruesome, that even if he could tell her about it, he wouldn't. She supposed something like this could incite a change in someone over time, and he had been on the case practically since the beginning. But he had never showed any real change before. She supposed it was just the stress of being on it for so long though. Almost every agent and detective on the case had died by now.

She worried about him greatly, wondering if he was really okay, if she would get the phone call or the knock on their door in the middle of the night one night and find out he had been the next victim. But he seemed very certain of his safety and assured her that he knew how to do his job and do it well.

One night, as he was away late working, she'd had a few glasses of wine. Feeling particularly curious about what he was hiding in his office, she crept upstairs and opened the door. She knew she was being bad, but the alcohol was erasing her sense of good judgment and she didn't care. She wanted to know what had him so tied up and occupied these last few years. _What kind of a monster is he really after? _she wondered.

Once inside, she walked over to his desk and sat down behind it. So many times had she peeked in on him at this very desk, pouring over files and pictures, trying so desperately to catch Jigsaw. When she finally came out of her depression, she watched him try relentlessly to figure it out, to study and learn and try to understand. She thought that he thought that by solving the Jigsaw case that he would redeem himself for allowing his little girl to be taken by another monster. Susan would never speak her thoughts on the subject to him, it would only upset him.

When she scooted in the chair, her foot hit something underneath the desk. She pulled back out and reached down. It was a safe. She touched the lock. Even in her intoxication, she knew she had stumbled across something. She took a pin from her hair and began to pick the lock carefully. One might wonder where she had picked up the skill, and they only had to look as far as her infamous reign as Assistant District Attorney. It was another thing she prided herself on, getting to the truth at all costs. She heard the small metallic click and knew she had been successful. She pulled the safe a little ways out and opened it. She jumped when she saw what was inside. A strange, pig-faced mask with long dark hair. It turned her stomach with how realistic it looked. She put it on the floor and looked at the other contents. Pulling out papers and files, she discovered several pictures of Jigsaw's victims, each one she had seen in the newspaper after their horrifyingly abused corpses were found. She flipped through, recognizing almost all of them until she reached the bottom of the stack, where abruptly, she came across a dozen or so pictures of people she had never seen in the papers. _Well that's strange,_ she thought. She followed the Jigsaw case closely in the papers, especially since Mark was one of the lead detectives on it. She was sure she had read of each victim, and yet, the last twelve or so photos didn't look at all familiar. She dismissed it momentarily in order to look at what else was in the safe. The second manila folder she picked up was full of detailed diagrams of Jigsaw's death traps. Not surprising, since her husband had seen everyone after the fact. What startled her were the notes in the margins of the papers of the traps. Notes about how effective the traps were, improvements, etc. She didn't realize it then, but in a few hours, she would come to realize that the handwriting in the margins of the papers was her husbands. She moved on, putting the folder of papers down and reached down further. She then found a set of tapes, presumably collected from the crime scenes, each one label with the victim's name and the name Jigsaw. All accept the last two. Those had names of people she didn't recognize from the victims she had read about. And on the reverse side, where it should have read Jigsaw, it read Hoffman. Her heart stopped beating for a moment. She read it several times, trying to comprehend why her husband's name was on those tapes. She found a small, silver tape recorder and put the tape in, and pressed play. What came next startled her.

The tape started out hissing, then a dark, raspy voice began speaking to someone named Mike. She was barely hearing the words. What she was hearing was her husband's voice. Ran through a mild voice distortion, but Mark's voice all the same. Tears came to her eyes, and she began shaking. When the voice stopped speaking, and the small machine clicked as it turned itself off, she jumped, frightened. _No, he couldn't…_

"Susan?" a voice came behind her and she dropped the tape recorder. She didn't turn around, just stayed still. "Susan?"

It was Mark. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep from shaking. She turned slowly to face him. She didn't look at him, just kept her eyes on the floor. He knew she had found out. He had been standing there long enough for her to make the realization that the voice on the tape was his. He had seen the revelation hit her, seen it in the way her body tensed, the way her breathing came labored in frightened little gasps.

He stepped forward to her, and she stepped back. The alcohol's effects were gone from her system, leaving her completely alert and aware of what was happening. She had sobered instantly and was wishing that she had just stayed downstairs. He took another step, reaching out to grab her, and she bolted. He took off after her, catching her just before she got to the stairs. He grabbed her around her waist, binding her arms to her body. She kicked and flailed, trying to get away. Mark raised his hand and brought the heal of his palm down against the point on the back of her skull that made her instantly pass out. She fell limp in his arms. He then ran back to his office, taking the vial of morphine from his desk drawer. John and he had decided how they would handle this situation long ago, Mark hoping he would never have to use it. He returned to her body, laying on the carpet, unconscious, and pulled her cardigan sweater off. He found a large enough vein in her left arm and injected the morphine into her. John had carefully measured out enough to subdue her for a while with out killing her. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed John's number.

"Mark?" came his dark, raspy voice.

"It happened, she found out," Mark said breathless and frightened.

"Bring her," he replied, then hung up.


	4. Chapter 4

Susan woke up a few hours later on a bed. Her vision blurred heavily as she tried to open her eyes and see. She tried to sit up and found that she couldn't. The entire room spun and her body dropped back to the bed. She groaned with nausea. She then saw someone enter the room. As the person drew closer, she saw it was Mark, even through her labored sight.

"M, Mark," she groaned, reaching for him. Her deep, drug-induced sleep had made her believe her discovery was a nightmare. She then noticed that her hands were bond together at the wrists with coarse rope.

He ran a hand over her cheek. Mark had never seen his wife look so panicked and sick at the same time, so helpless. Not even after Isabella…

"M-mark, wh-what's happening?" she forced out in heavy, drunken slurs.

"Shhh, it's ok Susan," he pulled her arm straight and she vaguely felt a needle enter her arm in almost the same spot as before, then withdraw it after a moment of letting whatever was in it find it's way into her. He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. "I love you, Susan," he whispered. And she faded back into the darkness.

Mark returned to the room where he and John and his wife, Jill, were discussing what to do about Susan.

"What are we going to do? She knows, we can't just let it go because you love her," Jill argued. "I don't know why she was allowed to go without knowing anyway, it was incredibly dangerous."

"Calm down, we're going to give her a chance," John said simply. Both Mark and Jill looked at him. "Everyone deserves a chance, your wife is no exception."

"What do you mean 'we're going to give her a chance'?" Marked asked, suddenly envisioning her pinned into one of John's traps, forced to choose what limb or body part she would trade for her life.

"See what she values more, her life, both with you and her own, or truth and her definition of justice," John explained. Mark wondered what was going to happen. At the end of this, he hoped he would still have his wife.

A few hours later, Mark came into tend to her again. She was lying in the same position, but she appeared wide awake.

"Susan?" he called softly. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," she answered. She looked over and saw the syringe and bottle in his hands. "No, please, no more. It makes me sick," she whispered. He looked down at the things in his hands, then back at her.

"I wish I didn't have to, Susan. But under the circumstances, there's nothing I can do." He said. She bit her lip, letting her eyes close. He saw in the faint light the tears trickling down her cheeks that she forced out when she shut the lids. He came to the bed and sat down next to her, taking her arm into his gloved hands. Tears continued to flow out of her eyes, biting her lip, trying not to sob. He drew the liquid into the syringe, pushing a little out, then inserting it carefully into her arm. He pushed the morphine into her vein, then withdrew the needle just as carefully as he had inserted it.

"Why?" she cried. He looked down at her, watching as her thin shoulders trembled. He felt terrible, but he couldn't be weak. He chose this and now, more than ever, he had to stick by it. Running away would only delay the inevitable. He would find them. He would kill them for their cowardice. "Tell me why." She groaned. He shook his head.

"I don't have answers for you. I wish I did," he said.

"There has to be a reason, Mark. You don't just get involved with someone like him accidentally." She said. That was when she noticed someone else enter the room.

"Come on Mark," John said. Mark looked down at her, regretting more than anything that he had done this to her.

"Fuck you," Susan spat at him.

"Calm down, Susan, you'll make yourself sick," John said.

"You make me sick," she muttered.

"Come on, Mark, let her sleep," he said. Susan then forced her entire body to rise up. She sat halfway up before she had to come back down. Her body felt like it was much heavier than it actually was. And her head began spinning.

"No, no, Susan. Stay down, please sweetheart," Mark pleaded, knowing that if she didn't stop, she might say something or do something to hurt herself or make John mad enough to harm her.

"You're a fucking coward," she sneered, this time at her husband. "We had a nice life, a good life. What the hell were you thinking?" she slurred. Her speech was starting to wane with the effectiveness of the drug taking over. She tried to flail, but her body was prisoner to the morphine. She began to whimper softly, tears rolling down her cheeks even more.

Mark Hoffman may have been in over his head, but seeing her this way made him feel like the lowest shit on the earth. He was causing exactly what he had tried to fix so many months ago.

_Mark could remember getting in the elevator, could remember the older man in it with him who had stuck the needle in his neck, full of a subduing drug that made his whole body shut down. The next thing he knew, he had woken up inside a room in a place he'd never seen before. The first vivid thing he remembered was looking down and seeing the double-barrel shotgun strapped to him, pointing right under his chin. He was bond to the chair and unable to move. He then came face to face with the man he himself had been chasing for the past three years. The Jigsaw Killer, John Kramer. He was shocked and frightened. And all he could think of was someone having to wake Susan up and tell her that he was dead. What would she do without him? They were bound by love and marriage and everything else a man and woman could be bound by. The whole time he had been strapped in that chair, facing down the front of the gun that was completely at the mercy of a known killer's hands and judgment, all her could think of was her beautiful face and the way she had perked back up when she found out that their daughter's killer had been murdered, like a flower, wilted and dry, that was revived by the spring rains and warm sun. All the guilt of knowing that another man's blood was on his hands was worth knowing that she would be alright after all. Faced with never seeing her again frightened him more than killing, more than any crime scene, more than anything he had seen and been through. So when John had given him the choice, he had decided to take on this life in order to keep her, in hopes that she would never find out._

A few hours later, she woke again, hearing the three of them talking in another room. She looked around, letting her vision focus. She then attempted moving her arms. She was shocked to see that she could. They still felt off, but not as nauseatingly heavy and thick as before. She sat up carefully, moving slowly. She felt around, noticing that they had only bound her hands, not her legs or feet. She stood slowly, waiting for her balance. She had no clue how long she had been asleep or how long she had been away. She felt around, stepping lightly. She knew that if she was going to be getting out alive, she would need to be very careful.

She found Mark's sport blazer and felt around it. Somehow, he had been stupid enough to leave his gun inside. Though small, and she hardly knew how to work a gun, she knew that she could if she had to. She picked it up and held its weight in her hands. It felt beautiful, like some grand relief that she had be desperate for in her few waking minutes since Mark had brought her here, wherever here was. She looked around, trying to get some bearing on where exactly she was and how long she had been there. It was dark, but her eyes had adjusted so that she could dimly see around the small room around her. There weren't any windows, and it was cool, damp even a little. She assumed she was in the basement, but where, she had no idea. The bed she had been drugged asleep on for the duration of her stay. _How long has it been, Susan?, _she asked herself. She'd had the wine on Tuesday night, a work night for Mark. That was when she got a little too brave and a little too curious for her own good. Her insides hurt with hunger and emptiness and fright.

Her hands clung to the gun, wondering now if it was loaded. She had seen Mark check it a few times, and knew the basics of what you did to check. She did what she could, struggling a bit in the lack of light. But the chamber gave way and she saw that it was not only loaded, it was full. She closed the gun, making sure the safety was still on, then hugged the gun to her chest, knowing that it was her only lifeline. She hoped that she wouldn't have to use it, but wondered what other way their was out of this situation.

She crept back into bed and lay as she had been, facing the door, hiding the gun in her arms, gathering her legs up into her stomach. She then lay there, staring at the door, her eyes wide open. The morphine was long gone now and she was awake and fully aware and alert of what was going on. She stared at the door and waited for Mark to bring her next dose of the drug that kept her from harming herself and them, wondering just what she would do when he came and discovered that she had his gun.


	5. Chapter 5

Less than an hour had passed when Mark came back. Susan heard his footsteps coming down what sounded like a flight of stairs, then walking across a floor that may have been carpeted, for it made muted footfalls as he made his way to her room. She carefully tucked the gun between her legs, and as small as it was, it was perfectly hidden. She heard the familiar turn of a key and fumbled quickly to make sure the safety was still on before he came in. It was, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

She looked up at him as he came through the door and walked towards her bed, the medication in hand. She started to groan and squirm.

"Calm down, Susan, it's for your own good, sweetheart," he cooed.

"No, please," she sobbed, squeezing herself tighter, the cold metal of the small handgun pressing into her inner thighs. He looked at her as if thinking.

"What's wrong, Susie, you look like you're hurting, is it your head?" he asked, kneeling down next to her.

"It's just, I have to use the bathroom," she cried softly, as pitifully as she could. "I've been lying here all this time." He suddenly looked very sorry, very guilty.

"Oh, Susie, I'm so sorry," he lifted her up in his arms, and she made sure she kept her legs pressed together hard so as not to reveal the gun to him. "I'm sorry baby," he said, sounding as if he himself was on the brink of a breakdown.

I was the first time in days, maybe even longer, since she had been out of the dark room where they had kept her drugged and asleep. Tears of relief for seeing something other than darkness and drugged, blurred images flooded her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. The bathroom was not far from her dungeon and he put her down on the toilet.

"I can handle it from here," she said, worried that he would try to assist her further.

"Okay, I'll be outside," he said, walking out the door and closing it behind him. She did use the bathroom, relieved to find that when she was finished, that she could still stand and walk. Her legs were sore from being in the bed for so long with out use, but standing up straight felt good, very good. She took the gun in her hands and flicked the safety off. She wasn't quite sure what she intended to do with the weapon, all she knew was that it made her feel safe and relieved. Now, perhaps she had a little more control over her life and what was happening to her, rather than being at the mercy of the Jigsaw killer and his master puppeteer act he had imposed upon her beloved husband. She wanted to weep more for what Mark had become, how he had forever altered their lives because of this, but she knew there was no time. She took the gun from its position, hugged against her body like the lifeline that it was and pointed it out in front of her. _No turning back, this is it, _she thought to herself. And with that thought, she called to her husband.

"I'm finished, Mark," she called. She heard the shuffle of feet and the turn of the door knob.

"Are you feeling-"Mark stopped dead in his sentence when he saw the impossible glimmer of the metal object in her hands. His gun. _How the fuck could she have gotten-, _and again, he was cut off in his thoughts as he had been his spoken words. His blood ran cold with adrenaline. His jacket, in her room, he hadn't even thought of taking the gun out. And now, here it was, shining at him sarcastically in the dark basement bathroom, in the hands of his very rightly pissed off wife, whom he had been keeping drugged and asleep for the last ten days in the dark and gloomy basement room in John Kramer's house. He swallowed and found that his mouth had gone completely dry.

"Yes, Mark, I'm feeling much, much better," she sneered, slowly walking toward him. It didn't take a seasoned cop like him to see that the safety on the gun was off. He also knew that it was loaded. He had dumbly left it that way, thinking that the high doses of morphine they had been administering to her would keep her knocked out and unaware enough to even get up out of the bed, let alone fumble around and find his gun. It had been a huge mistake on his part.

"Susan, please," he said, backing away from her as she walked out of the bathroom. She suddenly felt very strong and aware, and it felt good to have the power back.

She forced him out of the room with the gun pointed at him. Sweat began trickling down his temples and he was very nervous with adrenaline.

"I want some answers," she sneered. That was when John came down the stairs and came upon what was happening. He looked at her, then at Mark, then back to her. Jumpy as she was, Susan turned to look at him, the end of the gun pointing at him. Mark looked to John as well, and he didn't seem phased, though he did put his hands up when Susan pointed the gun at him. "Now, I want to know why, Mark." She demanded.

Mark turned his gaze back to his wife, and to him, she looked like a stranger. The dark circles under her eyes, the weight loss from lack of food while she was drugged, the nervous, near neurotic look in her eyes. She didn't look like Susan. Not his Susan anyway. It made him wonder if he looked like a stranger to her as well.

"I said why?" she said, this time with more force, raising her voice more.

"Please Susan," John said, trying to quiet her.

"No, fuck you, you monster, what have you done to him?! He was a good man, a cop, a hero, and you've turned him into a monster like you. Why?" she felt the tears welling in her eyes and making her voice quiver. It felt like a dream to her, like a terrible nightmare that she couldn't shake off, couldn't wake up from.

"Maybe you should ask yourself that question, Susan." John said to her. She looked back and forth between John and Mark.

"What does he mean?" she asked her husband. Mark looked up at her, not sure where to begin. "Answer me!" she cried.

"Maybe it was because you were committing suicide, slowly and surely," John said.

"Shut up, I'm not talking to you," she snapped.

"Maybe it's because you were crawling up inside yourself and dying because of what happened to your little girl." He continued, ignoring her commands that he stop talking.

"Don't talk about her, she's gone and she's none of your concern anyways," she said angrily.

"Oh but she is, Susan. She's the reason Mark is here, indirectly," he replied.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she snapped again.

"You were crawled up in bed dying of depression. Your husband saw it and in spite of the fact that you were shutting him out completely, even though he lost a child as well, he did something about it. And if I recall correctly, it made you happy, relieved you," he said. Susan narrowed her eyes at him, the realization setting in on her. She turned to Mark.

"You killed that man?" she asked in a quiet, shocked voice. Mark looked at her and felt such shame.

"Yes," he answered, speaking for the first time since she pulled out the gun.

"But I thought," she stopped herself, then turned back to John. "How long has this been going on?" she asked suspiciously.

"Only since then," he said simply. "And it pleased you, as I understand. But I couldn't rightly let his good deed go unpunished." She felt her stomach roll.

"I don't understand how I didn't-"

"We all keep our secrets, don't we Susan?" he asked.

"What?" she looked confused.

"We all keep secrets, even from the ones we most love. Like when the hardworking husband is away, things happen to his wife. Some of her own accord, some against her will." He said. Her blood ran cold. "Why don't you tell Mark some of your secrets?"

"Susan?" Mark said. Her eyes fell to the ground.

"He doesn't know about the baby, about the abortion." John said. Susan felt tears well in her eyes. "About how you were too weak to carry another child, especially knowing that it was not of the man you love." She felt her body begin to shiver all over, became aware that she was only wearing a tank top, her bra and her panties.

"Susan, what is he talking about?" Mark asked. She knew he was thinking she'd had an affair, and now, she wished she had, that she had left him then, that she had went ahead and died when they let that bastard go. "Another baby, did you cheat on me?" he asked, his voice still soft, but shocked. She shook her head.

"No," she sobbed, tears falling down her cheeks. Even with the gun in her hands, her sense of control over the situation was rapidly decreasing.

"No, she didn't cheat, Mark-"

"No, no please. Why? Why are you doing this?" she sobbed.

"Sometimes, when husbands are gone long hours from their weakened, frail wives, things happen to them, things out of their control and beyond their consent." John said, and it became clear.

"You were raped?" he asked. She shook her head, again and again. "How could you not tell me? I'm your husband."

"You weren't there! You just left me, just like now, it was easier to run off to work than to deal with me! I was all alone!" she cried.

"You were raped and you never reported it?" he asked, sounding disbelieving.

"I didn't want to report it! I never wanted to talk about it ever! I just wanted it to go away," she broke, her body convulsing with her sobs.

"Susan, when? How?" he asked.

"Why don't you tell him, Susan, get it off your chest?" John said.

"No, no no no," she cried, visibly shaking.

"Tell him how you went for a walk because you were feeling ok that day. Tell him how he snuck up on you, overpowered you because you were so weak. He had a knife, but didn't need it. Tell him how you went back to your house and did everything wrong, tell him why you were really depressed, Susan." John said.

She pulled the gun back into her arms, looking at it, but not taking her finger off the trigger. The sight of his disturbed, hurt wife looking at the gun in such a way that it was her lifeline, her way out, her salvation, made him regret everything.

"Susan, please, give me the gun," he said, holding out his hand, but she didn't give it up.

"You're stupid, you know? Why would you leave this out. It was only a matter of time before I found it. Now I just can't decide who I would rather kill, you, him, or me." She said. He looked confused.

"That's not my gun," he said.

"Sure it is, it was in your jacket in that dungeon you were keeping me in," she said.

"I didn't leave my," Mark stopped, turning to John. "You did this, this is the game." He said.

"Game?" she asked. She then laughed. "Game, it's all a game, that's your motto. Playing God with people's lives. You think you can control me, when I could so easily turn it on you and blow you away?" she said. She then held up the gun to her temple. Mark jumped.

"No, Susan, don't," he pleaded, truly afraid he was about to witness his wife's suicide. "Susan, I love you. We can get through this. I promise, it'll be hard, but we can. Please don't do this."

"But I don't wanna be here. I don't want this," she sobbed softly. Another rush of tears ran down her cheeks. "I love you Mark." She said. His eyes widened, and it was the last thing she saw. She pulled the trigger, and everything went black and silent.

"No!" Mark cried out, catching her before she fell to the floor. The entry wound, as well as the exit were both pouring blood. Brain and skin tissue covered the wall where he dare not look. He cradled her against him, sobbing for her. "Susan, no, no, Susie, please, please," he cried, holding her. Her blood ran out on his shirt, covering his arms and hands. It was warm, and it made him ache.

John watched, and for the first time, was shocked by the outcome. He had expected her to comply, at least for a while. Jill came down and covered her mouth, both sickened and saddened. Mark looked up at them, angry, his wife's blood smeared on his face, hands, and shirt.


End file.
